UK FIG regime for new residents 2026

What the FIG regime is

FIG stands for foreign income and gains. The regime has applied since 6 April 2025 and replaced the old remittance basis, under which non-doms paid tax on foreign income only when they brought it to the UK. How the switch came about and what happens to the old non-doms is in our piece on the end of non-dom status.

The core is quickly told: if you are new to the UK, you can make a claim for foreign income and gains and then pay no UK tax on them. Unlike before, you do not have to keep the money abroad. HMRC says so explicitly: you can bring the exempt income to the UK, and no tax arises when you do.

The catch is time. The regime runs for at most four consecutive tax years from the year you become UK resident. Unused years cannot be pushed back. After that you are an ordinary UK taxpayer, taxed on your worldwide income.

Who qualifies: four years after ten years away

You are a qualifying new resident if you are UK tax resident and in one of your first four years of residence, after at least ten consecutive tax years of non-residence. Whether you are resident is decided by the statutory residence test alone, which we go through step by step in UK tax residence. Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords are excluded, which will affect few of our readers.

If you have never lived in the UK, the ten-year condition is usually met. It gets interesting for returners: if you worked in London until 2019 and come back in 2026, you do not have your ten years and do not get the regime.

Two fine points count. A split year, the year of arrival divided for tax, counts as a full year of residence for the FIG regime. And residence in another country under a tax treaty is ignored for this count. So if you arrive in the autumn, the broken year already uses up one of your four. How the year of arrival is split is explained in split year treatment.

If you arrived between the 2022/23 tax year and 5 April 2025, you can use the regime for the remaining years of your four, from 2025/26. If you leave the UK temporarily within the four years, the years without UK residence are lost; you can use the rest after you return.

Which income stays exempt, and which does not

You can exempt foreign income and gains: interest on an account abroad, dividends from non-UK companies, profits of a trade carried on wholly outside the UK, rent from property abroad, foreign pensions and gains on selling foreign assets.

Especially important for investors: offshore income gains are included. These are gains from funds that are not reporting funds in the UK, and many continental European ETFs and investment funds fall into that category. Normally such gains are taxed as income in the UK. In the four FIG years you can exempt them, which makes those years the best window to restructure a portfolio. More in pensions and investments in the UK.

Foreign employment income is not covered. If you work abroad as well for a UK employer, look at overseas workday relief instead. It ties in with the same four years but has its own rules and a cap. UK income stays fully taxable anyway: UK salary, rent from a flat in Manchester, interest on a UK account.

The price: allowances gone, credit gone

Tax freedom is not free. Make a claim in a year and you lose, for that year, the personal allowance of normally £12,570 and the CGT annual exempt amount of £3,000 in 2026/27. The marriage allowance and married couple's allowance go too, if you would otherwise have had them.

More side effects: you get no credit for foreign tax on exempt income, which is logical, since the UK does not tax it. Exempt income still counts towards adjusted net income, which matters for childcare support and the High Income Child Benefit Charge. And a claim on foreign income can limit tax relief on contributions to a UK pension, though not below the basic £3,600.

Hence the key rule of thumb: if all you have is a few hundred pounds of interest from home, the claim costs you money. If you expect dividends, rental income or a large gain abroad, it often saves you many times over. You do not have to claim for everything: HMRC lets you choose source by source, but even a single claim triggers the loss of the allowances.

What to check in your home country

The FIG regime only settles what the UK taxes. What your home country asks for is a separate matter. If you remain resident there too, for instance because family and home stay behind, the tax treaty decides where you count as resident, and a FIG claim does not change that. The principles are in the UK's tax treaties.

Some countries also tax unrealised gains on shares when a resident leaves, or keep taxing certain income for years after departure, sometimes specifically when the new country taxes lightly. A regime that exempts foreign income for four years can look exactly like that to a tax authority at home. Have your home country's departure rules checked before you move; the answer comes from its law, not from the UK's.

Sources: GOV.UK: Check if you can claim the 4-year foreign income and gains regime; HMRC Helpsheet HS266: Foreign income and gains (FIG) regime (2026); HMRC: Reforming the taxation of non-UK domiciled individuals (TIIN); HM Treasury: Budget 2026 (28 October 2026)